The Case Against Content Moderation
Aggressive content moderation is presented as a necessary response to hate speech and misinformation—but it's more like a moral panic.
Sam Kahn
· 15 min read
censorship
A collection of 32 posts
The Heckler’s Veto and the Right to Free Association
It's not just a matter of weighing up one group’s free speech against another group’s counter-speech. It’s also about one group’s freedom of association being impeded.
Holly Lawford-Smith
· 8 min read
Tolerating Intolerance: The Free Speech Paradox
Should society tolerate intolerance to protect freedom of expression? A deep dive into Karl Popper’s ideas and modern free speech debates.
Angel Eduardo
· 6 min read
In Canada, Asking for Evidence Now Counts as ‘Denialism’
Sensational 2021 claims that unmarked Indigenous child graves had been discovered in British Columbia now seem doubtful. But saying so may soon be a criminal offence
Jonathan Kay
· 10 min read
Roald Dahl and the Ethics of Art
The urge to censor is based on a misunderstanding of what makes literature valuable.
Iona Italia
· 11 min read
Poetic Justice
How an octogenarian artist defied curatorial bureaucracy.
Julia Friedman
· 9 min read
How Much Real-World Extremism Does Online Hate Actually Cause?
While calls to censor hate speech and violent extremist content on social media platforms are common, there’s little evidence that online incitement leads to real-world radicalization. Ironically, such calls may actually galvanize extremists, who interpret hostile media coverage, commentary, and censorship policies as confirmation of their victimhood narratives and
Bill Ottman and Jesse Morton
· 7 min read
Academic Ideologues Are Corrupting STEM. The Silent Liberal Majority Must Fight Back
We need to break the spell of illiberal ideology, and come back to our collective senses—to stop self-censoring in fear of the mob and excusing nonsense in the name of political allyship, and to start defending the values of pluralism, humanism, and democracy.
Anna Krylov and Jay Tanzman
· 10 min read
The Artist and the Censor
An embrace of the art for art’s sake ideal is the greatest defense for artists against self-censorship. Those who defend art from moralizing or censure—who accept the reality of art’s autonomy—are those who see art for what it is.
Alice Gribbin
· 8 min read
How Radical Transparency Cures Web Censorship and Surveillance
The Legacy social networks have betrayed the trust of their users to such extent that their brands are essentially unsalvageable.
Bill Ottman
· 11 min read
Quillette Podcast 4 - Meghan Murphy on Why Twitter Was Wrong to Ban Her
Canadian editor Jonathan Kay talks to Meghan Murphy, the founder of Feminist Current, a radical feminist blog and podcast. Meghan was recently banned from Twitter for “dead-naming” and “misgendering” trans women, activities that are now prohibited in Twitter’s terms of service. She wrote about this for Quillette.
Quillette
· 1 min read
The Comment Awards Fiasco
That seems itself to be an example of divisiveness and a snub to one form of diversity: that of diverse opinion.
Claire Fox
· 9 min read
When Censorship Is Crowdsourced
The very writers, publishers, poets, musicians, comedians, media producers and artists who once worried about being muzzled by the government are now self-organizing on social media (Twitter, especially) to censor each other.
Jonathan Kay
· 13 min read
Real Art Is Bound to Cause Offence
Artists should be nervous when advocacy groups gain influence over the creative process: Their focus is never art. It’s always their own narrow agenda.
Gabriel Scorgie
· 10 min read
Banning Bitcoin to Complete Big Tech Censorship
Bitcoin’s decentralized network means that regardless of how much corporate America hates some commentator, it can’t stop you from sending her cryptocurrency.
James D. Miller
· 5 min read